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Tonkawa phonology
Vowels Tonkawa has 10 vowels: * Each vowel is distinguished by the quality of sound and the length of the vowel. * The vowels occur in five pairs that have differing vowel lengths (i.e. short vowels vs. long vowels). * In the front and the mid back vowel pairs, the short vowels are phonetically lower than their long counterparts: → , → , → . * The low vowels vary between central and back articulations: . * Vowels that are followed by j and w are slightly raised in their position of articulation Consonants Tonkawa has 15 consonants: * The affricate and fricative vary freely between dental and postalveolar articulations, i.e. and . There is a tendency for to occur at the end of words (but no tendency for ). * The other coronals are consistently dental. * The dorsal obstruents are produced with a palatal place of articulation before front vowels , otherwise they are velar: ** → * The dorsal approximants are consistently palatal and labiovelar respectively. Consonant clusters There are two environments in which consonant clusters occur in Tonkawa: * when a consonant is repeated * when the cluster is within the syllable Repeated or identical consonants are treated as one unit. However, the condition that causes this repetition has not been fully analyzed. * Example: 'he scrapes it' versus 'lightning strikes him' There are cases where the glottal stop is not used in the cluster or combination There are certain consonants that can either begin or end in a cluster. However, if the cluster begins the syllable, there can be no intervening vowel. * Initial Cluster Consonants: * Final Cluster Consonants: Phonological processes and morphophonemics Initial stem syllables that begin with h- * the h- is dropped when a prefix is added * if the syllable is C + V, then the vowel is lengthened and given the quality of the stem vowel. * if the syllable ends in a consonant, then the initial stem forms a new syllable with the final consonant of the prefix. Final stem syllables * Forms: C V w or C V y * The form changes to C if followed by a suffix that starts with a consonant * If a long vowel occurs the suffixes change from (-we/- / ) to (- or -o/ /- ) An interesting feature of Tonkawan phonology is that the vowels in even-numbered syllables are reduced. That is, long vowels are shortened, while short vowels disappear. Analyses of this were given by Kisseberth (1970), Phelps (1973, 1975) and Noske (1993). Syllable structure The Tonkawa language is a syllabic language that bases its word and sentence prosody on even stressed syllables. * Disyllabic words are when the stress is placed on the final syllable. * Polysyllabic words are when the stress is moved to the next to last syllable, the penult. There are five types of syllable arrangements: (CL consonant, CC: consonant cluster, V: vowel) * C + V → ka-la 'mouth' * C + V + C → tan-kol 'back of head' * CC + V → 'he scrapes it' * CC + V + C → 'lightning strikes him' * C + V + or / / → jam- 'I paint his face' External links * Category:Language phonologies